Rare coins in circulation UK: Which coins to look out for

Find out how to check if you have a rare UK coin and which ones to look out for.

In this article I am looking into how to check if you have a rare UK coin that is in circulation. I have done some digging around the net to find the easiest way of identifying rare coins.

Firstly, if you have one of the new shaped £1 coins dated 2016, these are not rare as a lot were made. There are some rare new £1 which were created as test coins. Apparently these have the word “Trial” written on them and are being sold for hundreds of pounds on eBay.

If you have a lot of change in jars it may be worth checking the coins. There are examples of people selling rare 2p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 coins for a lot of money. I looked into this topic further to see what the coins were worth.

There are a number of very useful websites you can use to validate the coins and find out how much you might be able to sell them for.

Which rare coins to look out for?

There are some very useful lists to help you identify rare coins, here are some examples.

Examples of some rare coins:

20p – without a date

2p – 1983 which has New Pence on it

50p – Olympic swimmer with water over the face, the face should be visible

50p – Kew Gardens

2p – Silver in colour

£2 Edinburgh 2002

£1 – New £1 the Queen’s head and floral should sit directly above bevelled edge and potential die errors

To view the official images of these coins, you can take a look here at Money Saving Expert website or on Google images featuring pictures of Rare Coins.

There are many more rare UK coins to look out for and the best place I have found to identify them is a website called Change Checker. Check out the Scarcity Index page to check the most rarest of coins. I found this a very useful website when researching the coins.

If you have loads of change at home in jars, it would be worth going through it as you might have a sought after coin. Collectors are on the look out for rare coins to complete collections and you might have what they are looking for.

What to do if you find a rare coin

Apparently if you believe you have one of the very rare coins, you should visit the Official Site of the BNTA (British Numismatic Trade Association). Numismatic means someone (dealers) interested in coins.

You can contact the coin dealers off the list to help you verify your coins. It is advisable to contact a few of the dealers to try to get a good price etc.

You can also check eBay* for sold coin items, search the coin denomination you have to find out what they are currently selling for.

Another good resource I found was at the Post Office Blog, you can check out the rare coin article here.